CMRS - 1

                                         “ The Start “ 
                                    (with the author’s note)

After my failed attempt to insert photos in between texts in the last issue,
I was helped by Shreyas Harish, to have a blog for myself.
It goes by the name ‘chinnamanoor connections’.

In this, I am able to save the texts sent to our clan and also insert photos as desired. –

It looks nice in my blog but I am not sure how it is for others who view my blog. –

To visit my blog, please use Google search for the site, www.cmrlink.blogspot.com

Next, we will dispense with two topics in the contents list to make a start straight away.

I would try for frequent release (instead of weekly), once it gathers tempo.

Any stuff side tracking from main story is a necessary thing intended to provide back ground scenario like historical facts etc. – For that, I have used some extracts  from reference books I read, 1) Michel Wood’s ‘The story of India’; 2) Dr.D.Devakunjari’s ‘Madurai through the ages’ ; 3)on Gopal Krishna Gokhale etc.- (Hope it is permitted)

One exhaustive reference list of Bharatwaja cmr clan members is in the attachment. – Also enclosed is  shorter tabulation for Srivatsa clan

I can send a still lengthier list for Srivatsa cmr clan too, but on second thoughts, I decided against that, as both charts seen together may result in brain damage - which anyway will happen in stages as we proceed with the story. So, let us not worry about it as of now.

Now on to the ‘Start’ - …..A word easily said than done.

How to start and where to start for a complicated story like this, is a big question.

Help some how comes when I desperately need one. – It is a mystery. - When mysterious things happen that human brain can not comprehend, ancient Hindu seers named it as ‘Brahma Rahasiyam’, which the present day scientists call as the ‘Quantum Secrets’.

Can you believe if I say that in the case of cmr story, the kick start was provided by a peculiar and unlikely combination of four things? –

It happened in the fag end of eighteenth century and involved the following,

1) Asiatic society of Bengal. – Calcutta – 1786 AD.

2) ‘The East India Company’s first collector at Dindigul, Madurai country – 1790 AD.  

3) 12 year old friendless boy, Narayanan of cmr srivatsa clan, now at Madurai

4) 8 year old parentless boy –Egyanarayanan of Bharatwaja clan at Tirunelveli

Let us go step by step to know the inter-connected significance, which means taking our readers for a conducted tour, to the old day Calcutta and Madurai, to start with.

                                                                                              

Asiatic society of Bengal. - Calcutta – 1786.

- Foreigners knew its value that Natives knew not. -

Sir William Jones was a British judge in Calcutta.

He was a Welshman and a brilliant linguist who knew Greek, Latin and Persian.

His great desire was to learn Sanskrit, the language of the ancient Hindu texts and laws. Eventually he succeeded learning Sanskrit with the help of a Brahmin priest and he was fascinated to see close linguistic resemblances of it with Latin and Greek.

He said this in a lecture to the newly formed Asiatic society of Bengal on 2nd Feb.1786,

“The Sanskrit language, whatever its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either. “

There was pin drop silence in the hall that had a gathering of intellectual lot – more of Bengalis among the Indians and more of British among the Europeans. – This society was the brain child of old British traders who wanted to possess a through knowledge of the country, its religion and languages and more importantly about its complex culture.

When Calcutta became The East India Company’s Head office, foreign influence became more pronounced among the Bengalis first than in other parts of India. - R.C.Mazumdar, a historian has narrated how English education spread in Bengal much before it did in other parts of India.                The first English school in AD 1800 was in Calcutta.

Later it was Hindu college in 1817 at Calcutta after the native educational society was formed in Bombay in 1815.

Jones was not, in fact, the first to see the connection. Early 16^th century visitors like the English Jesuit Thomas Stevens had seen it too – the similarities in these languages.

But what William Jones did was to use this as evidence that classical old languages had a common root to which there was no disagreement. But the controversial aspect was that whether India or Iran, which started as the land of Aryans, whose language was Sanskrit.

Mr.Alexander McLeod, an young officer of the E.I.C ( East India company ) was sitting in a corner seat. 

‘How I wish I remain in head office and Calcutta for a longer time’, was his first thought.

At the same time, he also realized that it was more of a wishful thinking, he being a new comers.
Scanning through the hall, he could recognize some officers like Elphinstone, Munro and Metcalf.

Little did he know at that time that after the lecture session there will be High-Tea and that he will get introduction with the seniors including the judge himself? – He also did not know at that time how this acquaintance will end up in his getting special assignments, transfers and promotion.

                                                                                         (To be continued)